A Girl Named Ania May

by Faria C
(Canada)

One day, while I was walking home from the bus stop, I walked past a girl I thought was really pretty. I was 16 at the time (now 17) and she looked a year or two older than me.

After she'd passed, I turned back to look at her again. She was one of those people you can't take your eyes off of. Then I did a double take, because the girl had also turned back and was smiling at me. I did a TRIPLE take when she walked over to me and introduced herself as Ania May. She asked if I was looking at her because of her "problems," and I asked her what she meant.

All she said was that people like me didn't even understand, and that was okay with her. She said she was from Greece, that's why she had the foreign accent. I'd been wondering about that, since she looked Mediterranean, and was named Ania, but the Ania May name sounded sort of like an Asian name... then she did a very strange thing: she laughed. Really loudly. And then she gave me the scariest look anyone's ever given me - she had unusual and mismatched eyes, and at the time, they almost looked like they were bulging out. Then she walked away, saying she knew that was why I'd turned back - to laugh at her and her "problems".

When I got home, I was wondering what had just happened, then to get it off my chest, I called my best friend. She was doing homework, and when I told her the story, she told me language was an interesting thing. When I asked what she meant, she said that Ania-May in pig Latin is actually Mania. I asked her if she meant Goth-Mania or something like that. And she told me she didn't know, had just thought of the idea as I'd said "Ania-May."